Vincent Price: 'Answer me monster, tell me truly. Shall I ever hold again that radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore?'

Raven: 'How the hell should I know?!' The Raven (1963)

In theory, one of the most unlikely marriages in film is between horror and humour. When you think about it, the two are as far apart as two opposing emotions can be. Surely death and all its natural and supernatural connotations could never be amusing. I mean, laughed at any corpses lately? At any disfigured, demented unfortunates shunned by society? Or at somebody struck down with an incurable disease and forced to act out unspeakable atrocities to free himself from the agony of affliction? Well you have if you've been watching films like The Return Of The Living Dead, A Nightmare On Elm Street or An American Werewolf In London! Effectively used, humour can greatly improve a movie, but you have to know the ground rules. It's a notoriously difficult thing to pull off skilfully because, for the most part, the filmmaker faces the problem of not knowing how far he should go to get a laugh. The horror genre, being populated by knowledgeable and devout fans, is possibly the worst choice of genre to send up, and a director is apt to be taken to task for turning out a substandard, unfunny film (especially if he/she is not traditionally associated with horror). So, the director is faced with several choices: he can make his movie with subtle scares, he can go for all-out laughs, eccentricity or nervous, darker comedy.

But why take on this difficult task? When John Landis or Joe Dante, for example, survey the horror field, what is it about these films that makes them want to send them up in the first place? Well, consider these images: crawling, disembodied hands; unemployed bloodsuckers who live in luxury and get all the birds; monsters constructed from human leftovers; walking corpses with a taste for human flesh; even killer tomatoes! This is a genre ripe for spoofing. The basic absurdity of many horror icons and concepts means that it's inevitable that some element of comedy will infiltrate these films. It's down to the director, his knowledge of horror movies, and his sense of balance -- how much parody should exist besides genuine scares -- that determines the success or failure of a horror comedy.

Some of our favourite movie monsters have been lampooned -- with varying degrees of success. Vampires are popular targets: Vamp (1986), Vampire's Kiss (1989), Innocent Blood (1993) and Fright Night (1985); werewolves too: An American Werewolf In London (1981), The Howling (1980), Teen Wolf (1985). Frankenstein has been caricatured more times than he can remember, as in Horror Of Frankenstein (1970), Frankenhooker (1990) and Young Frankenstein (1974). The living dead -- as if they didn't have enough to worry about predicting which part of their anatomy was going to drop off next -- have been mercilessly mocked in such classics as The Return Of The Living Dead (1985), Night Of The Creeps (1986) and Braindead (1992). Also, haunted houses are perfect settings for scares to collide headlong with slapstick -- for example, in The Old Dark House (1932) or The House On Haunted Hill (1959).

But which horror films successfully use humour to produce a better film? John Landis's two horror parodies An American Werewolf In London and Innocent Blood are particularly good examples of how to do it and do it well. In the former, there's plenty to laugh about -- David is a werewolf with a conscience and he's willing to listen to suggestions concerning how he should kill himself before the next full moon. At the back of a dingy cinema, to the accompaniment of soft-porn moans, some of his undead victims suggest ways to commit suicide: 'I know where you can get a gun,' suggests a tramp, helpfully, 'Don't I need a silver bullet or something?' asks our lupine hero, 'Oh, be serious, would you!' -- this from his best friend, Jack, a rotting corpse with a macabre sense of humour. In Vampire's Kiss, Nicholas Cage thinks he is turning into a vampire. At one point, he is shown walking up an avenue, unshaven, dishevelled, mad as a March hare (and a yuppie to boot!), holding out a wooden shard and imploring passers-by, 'I'm a vampire. Kill me, kill me!'. Similarly, in Richard Wenk's enjoyable Vamp, two college boys come into contact with vampirism and one of them pays the ultimate price by becoming one himself. 'Make sure I don't come back like you, okay?' he says to his friend, about to be bitten by the newly converted vampire, to which he replies, 'Hey, you think I like this? Or them? They're boring creeps. They don't call them walking dead for nothing! Try talking to one of them some time!' 'I am,' is the answer.

In Horror Of Frankenstein, Ralph Bates plays the infamous Baron -- but his portrayal is unlike any to date. Upon returning to the castle, and after having disposed of his father, Frankenstein comments upon his servant girl's apparent weight increase: 'You've put on weight in a couple of places,' he says. 'Not too much I hope, sir,' she replies, to which his lascivious response is 'Not at all...' Other delights in this very different kind of Hammer film include the reanimation of Gustav the tortoise (an obvious forerunner to the revival of the cat in 1985's Re-Animator), and Bates's reaction to losing his monster in a vat of acid at the end of the film -- a resigned, deadpan look to the camera -- especially effective because it flaunts gothic tradition, the usual ending to such films being an exploding laboratory, a frantic horse and carriage chase or a battle against evil on holy ground.

As for zombies, well ... sometimes in the movies it's cool to be a ghoul. In Peter Jackson's Braindead, zombies run riot and the laughs come thick and fast. Lionel's mother has been bitten by a Sumatran Rat Monkey and she's fast succumbing to zombie-ism. At the dinner-table, her son serves custard to her guests. 'Damn fine custard,' says one of them as he takes a mouthful which has just been enriched with what clearly ISN'T strawberry jam; during his mother's funeral, Lionel wrestles with her putrefying corpse in the vestry as the vicar intones 'Though deprived of his father at an early age, (Lionel) was blessed with an abundance of mother-love.' And in The Return Of The Living Dead, two morgue attendants start to turn into zombies, but what's worse, they're not even aware of it. 'It looks like Rigor Mortis is setting in,' says the pathologist. And so it is -- except they're still alive!

Although the last few decades (especially the 80s) have produced a number of fine (and not so fine) horror comedies, this film hybrid has been in existence for a good deal longer. 1935's classic Mad Love saw Peter Lorre expertly combining a chilling performance with a proven ability to add comedy to his portrayal of a surgeon in love with a married woman who decides to operate on her musician husband's damaged hands. Several great moments here, especially near the ending where the mad doctor almost convinces the husband that his head has been sown back on after an accident! In The Devil-Doll (1936), Lionel Barrymore is delightfully wicked as he shrinks humans to doll size for his own immoral schemes. The Invisible Man (1933), directed by James Whale, has many comedy elements which work well in combination with the special effects, including the scene when the invisible man assaults a bobby by swinging him round and round like a lasso before releasing him, minus his trousers, right into the arms of his incredulous colleagues. 'Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May ... on a cold and frosty morning,' sings the transparent one as he skips down the road, wearing nothing but the policeman's trousers and pursuing a shrieking woman into the fade-out.

Humour in horror movies tends to work best when it serves the plot and isn't superfluous to it. Such as the edgy, black humour of An American Werewolf In London; the eccentric comedy relief provided by Jeff Golblum in The Fly (1986); light relief during intense films like Death Line (1973) in which Donald Pleasence plays a police inspector investigating cannibals on the London Underground and whose drunken exploits at the local pub add a much needed jocularity to proceedings; and when the filmmakers know and respect the genre they're satirising and produce labours of love such as Love At First Bite (1979) (the great opening sees Dracula {George Hamilton} seated at his piano playing an accompaniment to the howling wolves in the background. 'Children of the night -- shut up!') and Roman Polanski's fun but scary Dance Of The Vampires (1967).

The advent of the 'comedy element' in compendium pieces -- films which combine several stories in one movie -- has been effective on more than one occasion because it lightens the tone and gives the viewer breathing space before the next horror segment. For example, in 1945's classic Dead Of Night, 'The Golfing Story' segment in which a golfer haunts his fellow because of love rivalry, is a timely break in the overall mood of the film. In Tales Of Terror (1962), 'The Black Cat' sequence sees Peter Lorre on fine form as the disgruntled drunkard who walls his wife up in the cellar and is found out because, unbeknown to him, he has walled up the cat as well (not the first time Edgar Allen Poe's work has been given the comedy treatment). And, most recently, in John Carpenter's Body Bags (1994), one of the stories has Stacy Keach longing for a cure to encroaching baldness but finding that it's more a case of hair today, gone tomorrow as he pays the price for his long, sultry locks.

Of course, not all so-called horror comedies work in the way in which their creators intended. Sequels, for example, often have a tendency to be detrimental to the original. After the inventive gore of Re-Animator (1985), the sequel Bride Of Re-Animator (1990) was not nearly as effective; the first two Evil Dead movies (1983/87) were poorly served by their disappointing successor, Army Of Darkness (1993) which dropped any pretence of trying to frighten its audience by indulging in all-out silliness and over-the-top set-pieces. The same is true of Return Of The Living Dead Part II, another film which failed abysmally to balance the scales between horror and humour.

Mind you, certain horror films stand out as unintentional comedy classics -- not least the 'video nasties'! Lucio Fulci's hilarious New York Ripper (1982) has a killer who does lousy impersonations of Donald Duck as he slices up his victims. At the end of the movie, one of the cops in charge of the case analyses the killer's motives: 'In putting all the onus on The Duck -- he wasn't the one who was responsible...' No, but the verdict is, he went quietly quackers. Antonio Marghereti's 1980 stinker Cannibal Apocalypse has enough ludicrous dubbed dialogue to keep them sides a-splitting. The police captain, a real loveable rogue, dispenses his wisdom when one of the cannibals takes refuge in a shopping precinct. 'No good cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch,' he growls as things look like going the way of the perp. 'I'll tell you something else,' he continues, 'he's going to be singing through his ass-hole when I get through with him.' He sure knows how to bolster the confidence of his charges too as evidenced by the avuncular advice meted out as they prepare to move in: 'Okay boys, it's time to shit or get off the pot.' What inspiration! And in the mondo masterpiece Brutes And Savages (subtitled 'A Factual Report'), the ominous narration '...invites (us) to join the Arthur Davis Expedition to some of the untamed corners of our world where the inhabitants, man and beast, live today as they have lived for centuries, untouched ... by what we, in our wisdom, call civilisation.' Instead of the promised 'real-life' horrors however, we're given: a faked crocodile attack (a muddy river interspersed with a plastic croc in a bright blue swimming pool); lamas tied down and forcefully mated to the accompaniment of 20s silent comedy music; and, the piece de resistance, simulated sex between man and lama: two willing human participants approach a female lama, one pulls down his undies and proceeds to play-act copulation whilst the voice-over soberly explains 'To us, the togetherness is a little ridiculous. To them, it is an act of faith. And, in reverse, what do you think they would make of our city zoos, and our battery farming, our wars and our crime?' Meanwhile, partner number two is ready for action; off come the trousers and it's down to business as man once more comes cheek to cheek with nature...

One of the major deciding factors in whether a horror comedy will be successful or not is the quality of the acting. Character sympathy is all-important. Without it, the audience laughs at the players as dehumanised objects, not as real people. Take Vincent Price, for instance. Price starred in a number of very effective horror comedies, among them The Raven, The Comedy Of Terrors (1964) and Theatre Of Blood (1973). What distinguished these films was his ability to project a hammy flair into his roles which was perfect for the type of films he starred in. Especially true of Theatre Of Blood, Price's theatricality made him perfect for the part of Lionheart, a Shakespearean actor who, in revenge for being not being voted Best Actor by the Critics' Circle, acts out the gruesome deaths of several of the bard's plays. One of the best scenes involves his dressing up as a camp hairdresser whereupon he welcomes a member of the Circle to his salon, quips 'Butch knows best!' -- then gruesomely fries her under the blow-dryer!

But even if the films themselves don't make you laugh, then some of the titles might raise a smile or three. Try these, for instance: I Drink Your Blood, I Dismember Mama, I Married A Werewolf, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Crazy Mixed Up Zombies, Breakfast At The Manchester Morgue, Zombies On Broadway, My Pal Dr. Jekyll, Pardon Me But Your Teeth Are In My Neck, Please Don't Eat My Mother!, Up Frankenstein, Werewolves On Wheels, Bloodsucking Freaks, Curse Of The Cannibal Confederates and Rabid Grannies.

Some memorable horror poster mottoes abound too: Killer Klowns From Outer Space ('In space, no one eats ice cream!'); Scarecrows ('They're in a field of their own'); Revenge Of Billy The Kid ('Old MacDonald had a farm ... And on that farm he HAD! a Goat ... Ee-aye, Ee-aye OH!'); Maniac Cop 3 ('The wrong arm of the law is back'); and The Abominable Dr. Phibes ('Love means never having to say you're ugly').

As already stated, it's a question of balance. Indeed, when does horror comedy become comedy horror or, more to the point, outright comedy? Obviously some movies come down harder on the horror side of things whilst others include the horror element merely as a plot contrivance. And, of course, this will decide how a film will be marketed and what age category it will fall into. So, you could argue that Ghostbusters (1984), Ghost Breakers (1940) and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) are comedies which incorporate horror conventions and stereotypes to supplement their plots. And that the likes of Carry On Screaming (1966) is pure comedy.

Whatever the case, it does beg the question of how far you should go. The difference between the O.T.T. gore of Peter Jackson's Braindead (aka Dead Alive) and Bad Taste (1988) and the sick, decidedly dodgy humour of Jörg Buttgereit's Necromantik (1987) is that the former movies were portrayed as fantastical and patently unreal, whilst Buttgereit's film, despite many guilty laughs on the part of the viewer, is often too real for comfort -- no doubt the intention of those involved in making it.

Quite apart from being unsuited to the horror genre, it seems that comedy not only provides light-hearted relief during the intense moments but actively improves some films. It's not as unlikely as it seems -- often, our response to something horrific is to laugh, but we're not really laughing because it's funny. Instead, our reaction is one of nervousness and unease; it's not happening to us; we can afford to be blasé; there are no such things as flesh-eating zombies or bloodsucking vampires. Are there?... Horror comedy is an ongoing tradition, and in the right hands, it can be a very powerful tool, especially for the director who knows the how to satirise without insulting the most important audience of all: the horror fans. As The Creep says in Creepshow 2 (1987), 'It's amazing that you bores and ghouls keep coming back for more. You must be gluttons for PUN-ISH-MENT!' Hence we have the likes of Funnyman (1994) taking humorous horror into the 90s and beyond, and as long as these films retain their cult status amongst the hard-core fans, no doubt we'll be seeing more of the same for a long time yet.

Originally appeared in the BFS Newsletter, Vol. 19, No. 5, Sept/Oct 1995